Monday, March 14, 2016

7 Things About The Girl From Everywhere

In some ways Heidi Heilig's The Girl From Everywhere is so me that the things that aren't seem almost meaningless.

1. For most people time traveling pirates seemed liked enough info to be like yes. If, like me, you are mildly interested in time travel or pirate books, but do not cross (figurative) mountains to get them, Nix is a member of a time traveling pirate crew captained by her dad. She is half Chinese, half white, and there are clear rules about where they can go, but ultimately her dad has been trying to get back to when her mom was alive, and Nix is worried that by re-entering that timeline he might end her. Oh, also, she was born in Hawaii. So they are trying to get to 1800's Hawaii. (Yes, mixed race main character, Hawaii. I am in.)

2. They say that Twitter doesn't sell books, and I think what they mean, is that having X followers doesn't guarantee X sales, because I follow people I don't read, and don't follow plenty of people I do. I seek interesting people who discuss things I care about on Twitter. And one of those things is books, so I follow people who talk about books. But I actually discovered Heidi when she was ranting about the casting of "Aloha", which you may recall was a topic of interest to me. And then it turned out she had a book coming out the following year, info I marked down for later. So, sure, I might have found this book without that. I'm Twitter buds with other 2016 debuts, but this helped. (There are a lot of books out there, peeps.)

3. So, back to the book without being too spoilery I will tell you the time travel has specific rules, that become more clear. Because with such magic, that's often a concern.

4. There may also be cute boys.

5. Nix's dad met her mom in an opium parlor, which might give you a clue that Nix's dad has a bit of a substance problem. I found the heartbreak, and the struggle of trying to figure out how to help, and how to not keep getting hurt by the addiction that is dominating this person, very real.

6. Nix didn't know her mom, has spent much of her life on a ship, but still feels these pulls to Hawaii, to New York where her dad is from, to China where her mom was born. This isn't necessarily exclusive to mixed race kids, and certainly the book is not about that, this is a factor in it, but that again felt very real.

7. The writing. I have four pages marked because I hit a sentence and just went, yeah. So basically, if time traveling pirates, historical places, addiction, struggles with parents, coming of age, and/or figuring out where you belong, this might be the book for you.